You all know about Born Pretty Store, but did you know that there is German version of the website called Nur Besten? They have the same range of products as BPS and free worldwide shipping, but prices and discounts differ. I don't know, but I hope that their delivery times are shorter than from BPS.

Garnet is one of my favourite minerals and I gladly wear shades of garnet-red on my nails. Therefore it was natural for me to buy a maroon L'Oreal polish named after garnet. Color Riche Le Vernis à l'Huile polishes come in bottles that resemble Essie bottles and have flat, wide, rounded brush, just like Essie. What is interesting is the stem of the brush - it has bevelled horizontal indentations that prevent excess polish from dripping. These polishes are enriched with rose, lotus flower, camelia seed and argan oils, but I (still) do not know what are they doing in polish.

You can tell that soft colours collection is good when even someone like myself likes two shades out of six. That was the case with this year's OPI Soft Shades collection. However, since they have made two pastel yellows for two spring collections, I could not decide which one I like better so I only got myself a mint polish. Despite the name, it did not cost a mint, but a bit less.

Today we are looking for inspiration among flags. Since I am one of those people who don't understand why anyone would wear any country's flag except their own, and I don't care that much for my own country's flag, I opted for a fictitious flag. Actually, I initially had some very real organisations' and causes' that I support flags in mind, but instead I chose to do Galactic Empire flag, from Star Wars universe.

Cuccio polishes are steadily climbing to the top of my favourite polishes. Excellent brush, quite good formula, wide selection of colours and more than affordable price for a salon brand is what makes them attractive. Cuccio polishes come in 13 ml bottles and are available at salons and salon supply stores.

How many purple-green multichrome polishes do I need? Apparently all of them. :D This one is from the addition to the Born Pretty Chameleon collection, which contains already seen colours, but enriched with glitter. Born Pretty Chameleon polishes come in 6 ml bottles with confusing Holo Polish label. I find the price of $15.88 too high for this amount and quality, but they are often at some sort of discount and at the moment this one retails for "just" $6.99.

Every time we do a matching manicure we strive to create a piece of true artwork, but today it is existing artwork that we turn to for inspiration. Since it would be hard to impossible for me to do something in line of my favourite old masters, I have turned to one of my equally favourite, but a bit more modern painters - Wassily Kandinsky.

Since my previous experience with Ya Qin An stamping polishes was excellent, I easily opted for two more of those to test and review. Along with expected quality, I had an additional motive to choose them - their size. Ya Qin An stamping polishes come in large 18 ml bottles. They retail for $8.43, but currently they are on sale and cost $4.59 and are worth every penny.

You could see in the monthly overview that I have gotten five new Vinylux polishes, and two of those are yellow. Vinylux is the original hybrid nail polish and the system consists of over a hundred colours and top coat.

As I have mentioned in one of previous articles, I shall try to show you current polishes and those that are no longer available / that have been untried for a long time in equal measure. Up until now, the polish that had been among my untrieds the longest is Alessandro Heavy Metal Knockin On Heaven's Door. It had only taken me two years and some months to go through all four Alessandro Go Magic Heavy Metal polishes. This was a limited edition collection and I am unsure if it can still be found somewhere.

I am keeping to Far East for this week's theme as well. We are looking for our inspiration in patterns and I was torn between (neo)baroque designs and motifs from traditional blue-white china. China had won.

Being someone who is not into fashion, trends and such, I found this theme to be a chore, which is why I am only publishing this article at the last moment. However, on the other hand, the theme is such that we are not limited to current fashion trends, but we can take our inspiration from fashion of times gone by, of different peoples or civilisations. That is why I looked for my inspiration far away, in Japan, and the fact that Japanizam had just ended and that Tsubaki kimono booth was right across mine had figured greatly in this decision.

I have less and less time for nail stamping, but want to stamp more often than usual. I have finally managed to do several stamping manis between my daily duties - enough to showcase this nice image plate. And then some. :D All BPS image plates are currently on sales so you should take this opportunity to get all the stamping supplies you need.

Last winter, when an opportunity arose for me to get some hard to come by indie polishes, Darling Diva polishes were the ones I had to get as soon as I had seen them. I have only gotten two, both from The Salem collection, a Halloween 2014. limited edition collection. Even though this polish is no longer available, Darling Diva keeps coming up with new interesting shades, which can be purchased directly from the manufacturer.

I am more and more disappointed by importers decisions when it comes to choice of nail polish shades available in our drugstores. Another brand that has a decent palette and which has been reduced to shades of nude, pink and red is Catrice. I don't know if there are five polishes not from that spectrum, but those few do stand out among other polishes. That is how one fine day a polish that pretends to be mint ended up in my shopping basket. Catrice polishes come in 10 ml bottles and retail for about €2.5.

If you are regular reader of my blog, you know that I've been unable to post regularly for awhile, for which I am very sorry. My old lap top has gone to meet its IT god and the main new item for this month is the new lap top. However, there were quite a few nails-related new arrivals, which may have something to do with the new Unitech store right in my neighbourhood.